Most Effective Use of Café Brasil & Music

[Lysander]

I just started my log, which you can check out here: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7889

I had a few questions about the best way to use some resources.

1) The Café Brasil podcast. What I have been doing with it is working with about 10-12 minutes of the podcast at a time. I find the pertinent length of the dialogue, and copy-paste that into google translate. It gives me a good gist of what is going on. Then I read the English translation first before listening and reading along with the Brazilian Portuguese audio. That's it.

I don't do this daily, but aim to get through one or two podcasts a week. Does this seem like the best way to use this resource? I could also re-read the whole thing in English and do a final listen through of it all at once after doing each section individually. Or, I could study more intensively by converting the text to a pdf, then sending it to my tablet with a built-in dictionary and looking up each word as I go along. I am trying to strike a balance between using resources effectively and not ending up spending more time manipulating/preparing materials than using them.

2) Music - I listen to a ton of Brazilian music. The discography of Jorge Ben alone could keep someone new to him occupied for quite some time! What is the best way to use music? Should I just listen to it passively since I am doing more active listening elsewhere? Should I always have the lyrics handy to read along? Should I get the English lyrics to try to learn vocab, etc...? I am just not sure if this is something best left to enjoy for the melodies and beats like I do now, or if it makes sense to more proactively do something with the music I am hearing so regularly.

Also, please share any Brazilian music suggestions regardless of genre or age.

[eido]

I don't know how effective my method is, but I pick a few songs to memorize and then I look up any words I don't know. I try translating it first with the knowledge I have and then correct it with the help of a lyrics video or other website, like LyricsTranslate. I used to know about 75 or more songs decently as a teenager by listening to them repeatedly on Pandora and YouTube.

I recommend "Ai Se Eu Te Pego". It's the only Portuguese song I know.

EDIT: fixed spelling of song. sorry about my portuguese, haha

[Sayonaroo]

use this program!
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 223#p98163

I changed the setting so it repeats the section 20 times before moving on so I have no silence

[iguanamon]

Welcome/Bem-vindo(a) to the forum, Lysander!

I had a few questions about the best way to use some resources.
1) The Café Brasil podcast. What I have been doing with it is working with about 10-12 minutes of the podcast at a time. I find the pertinent length of the dialogue, and copy-paste that into google translate. It gives me a good gist of what is going on. Then I read the English translation first before listening and reading along with the Brazilian Portuguese audio....
2) Music - I listen to a ton of Brazilian music. The discography of Jorge Ben alone could keep someone new to him occupied for quite some time! What is the best way to use music? Should I just listen to it passively since I am doing more active listening elsewhere? Should I always have the lyrics handy to read along? Should I get the English lyrics to try to learn vocab, etc...? I am just not sure if this is something best left to enjoy for the melodies and beats like I do now, or if it makes sense to more proactively do something with the music I am hearing so regularly. Also, please share any Brazilian music suggestions regardless of genre or age.

You're a beginner? Does that mean you have never learned a second language before to a high level?

I used both of these resources when I was learning Portuguese, and I had C level Spanish at the time. I would use a good course like DLI Portuguese Basic Course (free and legal to download). UT Austin has some good, free online resources available too.

In my post about the Multi-track approach (link at the bottom of this post), I explain how I integrate native materials into my learning. While I advocate using native materials, I don't advocate making them the main focus of your learning as a beginner, and especially not as a monolingual beginner. Café Brasil is one of my favorite podcasts in any language. It's great for learners because it does have an accurate transcript. What's not so great about it for learners at a beginner level is it's not comprehensible. There isn't an English translation available. Even though you could make one from a machine translation, there are better resources to use at your level. I would save Café Brasil for a later date when you are at an intermediate level.

Songs are perfect for you right now. They're short and often times have English translations. I have plenty of recommendations in my log here for you to check out (link in my profile to the left). Parsing a song along with dedicated course study is a good way to use native materials that won't overwhelm you. At this stage as a beginner, Café Brasil would be like drinking from a fire hose. A song is much more manageable. As a monolingual beginner... you need to work your way up to Café Brasil. One of the biggest mistakes I see monolingual beginners here making is biting off way more than they can chew. Remember, a good course can provide you with a foundation that will help make the native material make more sense.

Boa sorte!

[rfnsoares]

My music suggestions:

Pop and Rock music from the 80's and 90's: Legião Urbana, Titãs, Barão Vermelho, Cazuza, Paralamas do Sucesso, Ultraje a Rigor, Plebe Rude, Ira, RPM, Engenheiros do Hawaii, Rita Lee (Os Mutantes), Camisa de Vênus, Kid Abelha, Herva Doce, Spultura, Skank, Angra, Cássia Eller, Jota Quest, Charlie Brown Jr., Raimundos, Planet Hemp...

And from the 60's and 70's: "Bossa Nova" and "MPB" (Música Popular Brasileira), we have Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Vinicius de Moraes, Tom Jobim...

Nothing from the 2000's on pleases me.

Keep in mind that my Rock music suggestions contain many slangs and politics and the genre "Bossa Nova and MPB" is very poetic.

I recommend you to listen to the music while following along the lyrics. If you are a beginner do not try to translate. Still very difficult.

[Serpent]

We have this wikia article http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/ ... _listening Try out lyricstraining!

[Sayonaroo]

I notice that reverso translator is better than google translate for spanish/french. It might be the case with portugese. Try it out. Also lingoes dictionary (it's an offline dictionary program) has a pop-up dictionary option (I set it up so I just double click for it to translate the word) so it works great to supplement google translation.